Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District

1404 Goodale Boulevard, Suite 100

Columbus, OH 43212

Phone: (614) 486-9613

Fax: (614) 486-9614

Harvest Time at Hellbranch Meadows

Hellbranch meadows with beans

Today,Bob Sherman, Water Quality Field Technician, and I took a trip to Hellbranch Meadows to see how harvesting was going. The beans were smaller than Bob’s own fields because this area tends to be wet and it was a very wet spring, delaying planting.

You can see in the photo at the left where the combine has passed. Even though my grandfather farmed, I didn’t know what a soybean looked like, so here is a photo of a handful of beans.

Soybeans

Combines are amazing machines. They cut the plant and then separate the beans from the pods and the stalks. When you look at the photo below of the combine in the distance, the “dust” trail you see is the unneeded part of the plants being spread back on the field.